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Well, I'll say the obvious thing that everyone else is saying: 2023 has been an insanely good year for gamers (I would say for all of gaming if not for all the layoffs). It's ridiculous! My stats for 2023 are 69 games started (Nice), 53 completed, 9 dropped, and 7 will roll over into next year. I noted last year that I would start taking a more scientific approach to my rankings and have thus pain-stakingly and arbitrarily rated everything I played within 5 categories: Gameplay, Writing, Aesthetics, Time, and Feels.The first three are self-explanatory, but I'll go over the latter two. Time was added as a rating because I'm getting older and I consider my time to be valuable and I don't like when game won't respect that. Things that can reduce this rating are animations that can't be sped up or skipped or superfluous loading screens/areas. It also includes things like when a game requires you to grind out levels to progress or forcing the player to backtrack to other areas without fast travel or shortcuts. As an example, Vampire Survivors is a game that I'd rate as having a perfect Time score while Red Dead Redemption 2 rates rather poorly. Feels is more or less rated on a scale of  to  . Games that made me smile or laugh or generally feel good during the game were rated higher than games that made me frown, curse, or want to throw my controller across the room. How satisfyingly a game ends plays a large factor into this because recency bias is real. This category is extremely subjective and is also given the most weight across all categories (being worth twice as much).Games that would have rated high in this category would be Nier Automata or FFXIV:Endwalker. The game that would rate the lowest would be League of Legends without question or contest. Once all the scores were tallied up, the final score of each game was then normalized to a value between 1 and 10 (so the worst rated game was given a 1.0 while the GOTY was a 10.0). The average score was a 6.5 and the median was a 6.8. The average play time for games I completed and logged into howlongtobeat was 21h17m. No pictures because I'm lazy. 90% of all the games I played were on the PC and can probably be found on Steam. So, without further ado... we'll start this off in the manner that god intended, in descending order... 62. Lust from Beyond: M-Edition (1.0) - First Person Erotic Lovecraftian Psychological Horror - We're starting off strong with something that I'm embarassed is on here. Life would be better if I was the type of person that could delete this from my spreadsheet and pretend that I never bought this game for money, installed it on my computer, and played it for 2.1 hours because I was hoping to ogle cultist and/or eldritch abomination tity. But I'm not that person. This is one of the worst games that I've ever played in my life and has almost no redeeming qualities. It also made me nauseous! 61. Conway: Disappearance at Dahliaview (3.0) - Creepy Snoopin' Neighbor Boomer Wheelchair Detective Mystery - I ended up dropping this after a couple of hours because I found the main character to be kind of unlikeable. Like, dude, is it too much to listen to your daughter? To respect her a little bit? No? Okay. I guess you can pick this up if you think spying on and invading the privacy of your neighbors is cool to do. 60. Zodiacats (3.1) - Slider Puzzle CATS - The art and presentation is cute... not much else to say about this. 59. Agent A: A puzzle in disguise (3.3) - Puzzle Spy Thriller - There are definitely positive elements to this game but the puzzle design is all over the place and there is a TON of backtracking. 58. Dodgeball Academia (3.6) - Sportsball RPG - I was hoping for something closer to Golf Story but this game is not as well written and also doesn't play as well. 57. Coffee Noir: Business Detective Game (3.9) - Coffee Business Management Sim (in small text) Detective game - Coffee Noir has an absolutely hilarious premise, you play as a private detective who is hired to investigate the disappearance of a local coffee market businessman and to do so, you become a local coffee market businessman. I ended up dropping the game after realizing that I'd spent way more time and mental energy managing a coffee distribution empire than solving the mystery. I'll probably come back to this one day. 56. Moncage (4.2) - Perspective Puzzle-Box Implied-Narrative - I thought the story it was trying to tell was neat and I liked how it was told. I did not like the puzzle design (this is an understatement, my notes about this were not kind). 55. Tactics Ogre: Reborn (4.4) - Tactical Turn-based Squad-based Job-based RPG - I put 60 hours into the game and uninstalled it in the middle of the final dungeon. I was just so tired of playing it. I think the game looks fantastic, the voice acting is good, and the writing is great but the gameplay is slow as balls and bored me to tears. 54. The Spectrum Retreat (4.6) - First Person Puzzle - You wake up with no memories inside of a luxurious hotel staffed entirely with robots. As far as you can tell, there are no other guests. Then you solve some puzzles to figure out what's going on and who you are. The puzzles are decent and the story is fine, if completely predictable. Game really needed subtitles/closed captioning. 53. Sudocats (4.7) - Sudoku with Cats - Yeah that's the game. Replace numbers with Cat icons and then Sudoku it up. No surprises here! 52. Persona 5 Strikers (4.8) - Anime Mousou Heisty Hijinks Roadtrip - PC Port sucks and I felt like I was wrestling with the the camera the entire time I was playing the game. From what I played, everything that was good in Persona 5 is still good in Strikers. The game looks great, the music is great, and the menus are still some of the best in the industry. I would have loved to hang out with the phantom theives some more but oh well. 51. Brigandine: Legend of Runersia (4.9) - Fantasy Anime Empire Strategy w/Tactical Battles - Not very mechanically deep at either the strategic level or the tactical. The story is also kind of generic. The character art is quite good and that's about all this game had going for it. 50. Vambrace: Cold Soul (5.0) - Korean Knock-Off Anime Darkest Dungeon - It takes a lot of mechanical cues from Darkest Dungeon but it lacks a lot of the atmosphere that made Darkest Dungeon work as well as it does. Vambrace just needed a bit more polish for it to really shine. A better translation, small adjustments to encounter design, etc. 49. Murder by Numbers (5.1) - Murder Mystery Nonogram Puzzle Visual Novel - I rate this game pretty low on my list but I don't consider the game bad, it's just that by the time I completed it, I was so tired of solving 15x15 or 10x15 Nonogram boards back to back that I was growing sick of it. I only wanted to get back to solving the mystery! 48. AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES - nirvanA Initiative (5.2) - Anime Puzzle Sci-fi Dream-Detective Visual Novel- I hosed up and bought this for the switch, which can barely run this game. The time it takes to transition between menus/scenes/somniums/anything is NOT GREAT. I'll pick this back up later on PC via  or if I can grab it super cheap during a steam sale. It'll be on the backburner until then.47. Marvel's Avengers (5.3) - Hack and Slash Super Hero Action - This was definitely not the replacement to Marvel Heroes Omega 2016 that we all want, need, and deserve and I cannot believe how badly this game fumbled its first hour for me. I load the game up for the first time and it immediately starts rattling off DLC and post-game updates just spoiling the entire main campaign. And then I spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out how to even start the main campaign. The entire onboarding process for a new player was completely hosed, thank you games as a service. With that all said, once you figure out how to just play the game, it is a good to great experience. You genuinely feel like a super hero, smashing robots and dudes with super powers. I will probably go back to try out the DLC since it's been retroactively given to everyone that bought the game. Like 2021's Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, the marketing for this game did not do it justice and the GAAS stuff getting forced down your throat doesn't really help things. You also can't buy it digitally anywhere anymore, and I honestly think that that's a shame. 46. Jack Move (5.4) - Cyberpunk Decker JRPG - A cute RPG with simple mechanics and an alright story. Dialogue can be cringy. Game didn't overstay its welcome, which I appreciated. 45. Call of the Sea (5.5) - Puzzle Adventure - Pretty absolutely fine adventure game. You go to an island to try to find your husband and then chthulhu poo poo starts happening and the puzzles are fine and the story is fine and it's just fine. 44. Luck be a Landlord (5.6) - Slot Machine Rogue-Like Critique on Capitalism - It's a cute game about playing the slots to pay your rent and after every spin you add new icons to the reels. All the icons interact with each other in weird but intuitive ways. You want to build up a bunch of synergetic effects so that you can continue having a roof over your head. Game is super simple and runs take maybe 15-20 minutes. 43. My Lovely Wife (5.7) - Princess Maker Dating Sim Trigger Warnings - This game is about summoning demons and sending them out to gather [CARNAL ENERGY]. You give that energy to either someone who might be Satan or the cult that's holding onto your dead wife's soul for some reason. It's a weird and problematic game that can be surprisingly cute at times... but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless I knew they were into weird poo poo like me. 42. Guacamelee (5.8) - Mexican Metroidvania Mexoidv... mext... hrm Lucha Libre! - I enjoyed playing this game! I really liked picking up enemies and suplexing them into other enemies and then they would explode into coins! 41. Limbus Company (6.2) - Tactical Turn-based Gacha SCP-adjacent Bus ride simulator - I just recently quit playing this. Primarily because I don't like the direction that the game's recently taken as far as balance and encounter design and I hate grinding for XP. I'll also note that the controversy from earlier this year with the artist and the incels and how poorly that whole situation was handled also played a part in the decision. I'll continue to follow what happens in the story because the Project Moon universe is fascinating and I am invested with what happens to it and the characters. Quick note that the soundtrack is almost universally superb. The battle themes are all great... all of the tracks performed by Mili are spectacular. In Hell We Live, Lament is amazing and I love it and Fly, My Wings never fails to make my eyes sweat. I'll also shout out Between Two Worlds because... well, just give it a listen, it's an experience. -e- Gonna do the rest of the list over a couple more posts... eventually Belgian Waffle fucked around with this message at 07:05 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 07:02
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i literally have no idea what minecraft even is as a game at all. it's been out forever and there's a south park about it and one of my friends like 20 years ago showed me something he built in it. and i've seen people online make, like, recreations of real buildings? and made like machines that work realistically? but there's also zombies and underground lava caves? wtf is minecraft
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Dec 10, 2023 07:25
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YoshiOfYellow posted:That sounds like a lot of what I've heard for sure. Just haven't really ever found the opportunity to try it out, would need it to be on a pretty cheap price point to give it a go. I think on the Switch at least it has a fairly lengthy demo and progress from that will carry over into the main game.
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Dec 10, 2023 07:26
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ShoogaSlim posted:i literally have no idea what minecraft even is as a game at all. it's been out forever and there's a south park about it and one of my friends like 20 years ago showed me something he built in it. and i've seen people online make, like, recreations of real buildings? and made like machines that work realistically? but there's also zombies and underground lava caves? It’s a survival crafting game. Every square is a material type and you mine them and combine them to make tools or build shelters. At night monsters attack so you need to have prepared a shelter and defense. But the engine itself is both lightweight, robust, and intuitive enough that it can be modded to do a lot more. Most of the things you’re referring to are mods or just loving around in creative mode. You can treat the engine like digital legos if you want.
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Dec 10, 2023 07:49
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ShoogaSlim posted:i literally have no idea what minecraft even is as a game at all. it's been out forever and there's a south park about it and one of my friends like 20 years ago showed me something he built in it. and i've seen people online make, like, recreations of real buildings? and made like machines that work realistically? but there's also zombies and underground lava caves? so like, you often see minecraft screenshots that look like this:  because there's no object that emits light more than like 8 blocks away, so you have to space things out to light everything up so you don't get swarmed by mobs that spawn at night. or you just poo poo torches all over the place if you don't care about aesthetics minecraft mobs are kinda lame but they're decent threats and can be turned off if you don't like them. obviously the most famous one is the Creeper, which was born when Notch tried to create a pig in the 3D modeling program, hosed up the dimensions, and it turned out like that, which is a brilliantly hilarious way for one of the most recognizable creatures in all of video games to come into existence. The creeper makes no sound but silently aggros towards you, then once it's close enough it hisses right before exploding. it's an excellent design, if infuriating. from one of the MC devs: quote:The story of the Creeper - it was supposed to be the pig, but Notch mixed the height and the width values, or the rotation of it, so it's standing up instead of lain horizontally. But it did have the AI behaviour of looking at the player. So he just thought it was extremely creepy, with this weird thing walking around, looking at you. So he decided to keep it as a monster. He wrote that a friend said it would be cool if it exploded *laughs* and that brought us to the Creeper. then you have zombies, which just try to get to the player through the quickest most direct route possible, and aggro from insane distances. and the skeleton, which is slightly smarter than a zombie, and have near perfect aim with bows and arrows, and actively try not to burn to death when exposed to sunlight while zombies will just sit and die. spiders can climb walls to get to you. probably my favorite mob outside of the Creeper is Endermen, which are obviously based on Slenderman, who are passive mobs that can pick up naturally-generated blocks and will wander around harmlessly. until you look at them. then they will teleport behind or as close to you as possible and attack, with a horrific gurgling yell that doesn't consider distance with how loud it is. then there are the mobs for the other dimensions and I don't want to bother describing them. but yeah minecraft has something called redstone, which allows you to literally code things in the game in a very rudimentary manner. you can also make note blocks, which play different sounds based on the blocks they are placed on when powered by redstone, so there's tons of covers of all sorts of music in minecraft using massive redstone machines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbGsHGaqqdk&hd=1 I don't understand redstone poo poo and don't bother with it. but it's neat that it can do cool stuff if people want to work with it. there's also command blocks, which is just black loving magic, like someone made this using colored smoke particle effects in minecraft(music is layered over it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwhotujrJqE Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 08:14 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 08:05
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Nobody's even mentioned all the Minecraft MMOs, quest packs, or modified large-scale multiplayer modes/servers that exist, which at least for a given duration can help to give purpose to an otherwise often purposeless game. There's a reason I said Minecraft is going to be a dark horse contender forever, even if it didn't happen to be my game of 2023. And even then it came really close, only because I was playing a mod from several years ago instead and wanted my list to be all games that had at least some form of content from the current year.
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Dec 10, 2023 15:06
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Minecraft is kinda one of those evergreen games, alongside Stardew, where there's just such an insane amount of mod support that you could pretty much play it forever and always find something new. I'd put Dwarf Fortress firmly in this category too.
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Dec 10, 2023 15:14
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finished Ace Attorney. this game whips. originally planned to take a break after the first game anf switch to something else but think i might just go straight thru the trilogy first. koos group being the final boss ruled lol
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Dec 10, 2023 16:44
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is the list requirement either a top5 or top10??? or could i have say a top6 or top7?
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Dec 10, 2023 16:45
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Sally posted:is the list requirement either a top5 or top10??? or could i have say a top6 or top7? For your vote to count, you need to have at least 5 titles on your list and they need to be numbered from 1-whatever. (Descending order apparently or people complain.) You can have 6 or 7! A couple years back I only had 8.
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Dec 10, 2023 16:47
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Sally posted:is the list requirement either a top5 or top10??? or could i have say a top6 or top7? Pretty sure that’s fine. As I understand, you need at least 5 to qualify and beyond 10 won’t be counted, but anything within that range is okay.
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Dec 10, 2023 16:48
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sweet. gonna keep gaming but will need to revise my list at some point to slot in Ace Attorney
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Dec 10, 2023 16:51
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Okay time to do mine. I swear I must buy five games a month and then play only the same three games I've been playing for years. Also apparently I really like Pokemon, what a shocker Some obvious entries like Baldur's Gate 3 aren't in my list just because I haven't really played them enough yet. Notable near-misses: Monster Hunter Stories, Pokemon Island, BG3, Mount and Blade II, Crusader Kings 3, Rimworld, Papa's Freezeria, Suika Game, Vampire Survivors, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I still play Animal Crossing for about 20 minutes every single day and have done since it released. 10) Opus Magnum It's just - it's just so fun. Solving the little puzzles. It's just so good. You feel like a genius and an idiot simultaneously. This *cannot* be the best way of solving this level but it's mine, dammit, and I love it.  9) Age of Wonders 4 The ability to create a custom faction to your specifications and then roleplay hard makes this strategy / 4X / RPG a huge hit for me. My race of grumpy bird-people will rule the world under the iron claw of my dragon empress, and no amount of other races telling me I'm being 'evil' is going to make me feel bad. 8) American Truck Simulator Listen if there's another game that can fulfil my Long Distance Clara ambitions from childhood, tell me about it. Else I'm gonna keep playing this. Long Distance Clara shifts the gears. Long Distance Clara, she safely steers. 7) Elden Ring Like everyone else I am still bonkers for Elden Ring. 2024 is going to be the year I complete a run, dammit. 6) Erranorth Chronicles This RPG / deckbuilder is a mess. It's a huge, sprawling, ridiculous mess and I completely adore it. You can make any kind of character you can think of, and have cards that feel thematic and appropriate, and go beat up bandits and do quests across an open world. You do not need to have system mastery to enjoy this. Just imagination and an appreciation for being able to find silly combos. 5) Path of Exile Listen, I've only ever made it to the 'real game', maps, twice. I load this up once a league, start five different builds, play till I'm bored, then drop it. But I keep going back to do this and as a result it's one of the most reliable workhorses in my Steam library. I can always, always pass a happy couple of hours in Path of Exile. And it's genuinely free - the only DLCs are cosmetics, or stash upgrades, and you don't need stash upgrades until you're deep, deep in the rabbithole. Apparently plays amazing on the Deck too. 4) Siralim Ultimate This strategy / team-building / creature collection game is as deep as the ocean. The campaign is genuinely just the tutorial. If this game grabs you in its presentation and gameplay then it will have you forever. You'll keep thinking you have a handle on it and then uncover a whole new layer of customisation. Beware: this has its own cloud service and does NOT use Steam Cloud. Ask me how I know, new-PC-didn't-upload-to-the-Siralim-cloud. It's a near-perfect Deck game. 3) Pokemon Infinite Fusion The best fangame just keeps getting better and better. More Pokemon now, more custom fusion sprites. Fun and hilarious and adds a whole new aspect to the Pokemon universe. It's free and not a romhack, a standalone fangame! Give it a download if it seems even slightly interesting. 2) Coromon This is the best of the Pokemon clones I've tried so far. The creatures are endearing and interesting. I love the addition of a sort of 'medium shiny' called Potent - I don't really love that shininess is tied to better stats. But just having a semi-rare colour variant to search for rather than having to roll the long-odds shiny dice has meant I've spent hours just running around looking for potents. Genuinely worth a shot if you're into Pokemon. 1) Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. The addition of DLC to add in even more of the old Pokemon has kept this fresh and fun for me. The technical issues can't be denied, but they also can't quite ruin the experience. This is the first generation where I bought both versions just to play through the slightly-altered story again. Absolutely love it.
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Dec 10, 2023 17:11
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Siralim really is a comfy Deck game, and I haven't played another mon game that feels as good to build your team in. I'm looking forward to how it opens up after the campaign. I hadn't heard of Coromon before, definitely interested after looking around; it's half off ($10) on Steam so I plan to nab it before it goes off sale. It just looks so charming!
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Dec 10, 2023 17:36
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FireWorksWell posted:Siralim really is a comfy Deck game, and I haven't played another mon game that feels as good to build your team in. I'm looking forward to how it opens up after the campaign. It *is* charming! The little creatures do a Pokemon-anime version of their names as their little cries when you send them out. 
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Dec 10, 2023 17:37
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Belgian Waffle posted:My stats for 2023 are 69 games started (Nice), 53 completed, 9 dropped, and 7 will roll over into next year. I noted last year that I would start taking a more scientific approach to my rankings and have thus pain-stakingly and arbitrarily rated everything I played within 5 categories: Gameplay, Writing, Aesthetics, Time, and Feels.The first three are self-explanatory, but I'll go over the latter two. I like this system. I made up one that is sort of similar that rates games on Spectacle, Craftsmanship, Artistry, Gameplay, and Value but I think I might replace Value with Time as I agree that's something I put a higher priority on these days, and just address cost separately. I'd rather play a 2 hour indie game with a satisfying ending than deal with all the padded stretching of content that weak games seem to think is necessary to cram into everything and making Time a rated part of the game reflects that. Nice. 
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Dec 10, 2023 17:37
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HopperUK posted:It *is* charming! The little creatures do a Pokemon-anime version of their names as their little cries when you send them out. Oh no...I'd just bought MH Stories 2 yesterday but I might have to shelve that for a bit.
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Dec 10, 2023 17:38
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It's going to be high on my list later, but since we're talking about it now, the best Pokemon-style game I've played is Monster Sanctuary, and it's better than a lot of Pokemon entries if I'm being honest. The formula (3v3 but with a backup 3 ready to deploy if needed, with 90% emphasis on synergy rather than individual monsters) sounds great on paper, but what makes it fantastic is just how well it was pulled off with masterful balancing and no shortage of genuinely difficult fights to test you. Also metroidvania elements in the system where every mon has an overworld ability and most are related to traversal. Oh, and any monster you hatch to use hatches at your level so zero grind. Built in randomizer and challenge modes are well done too.
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Dec 10, 2023 17:59
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Epic High Five posted:It's going to be high on my list later, but since we're talking about it now, the best Pokemon-style game I've played is Monster Sanctuary, and it's better than a lot of Pokemon entries if I'm being honest. The formula (3v3 but with a backup 3 ready to deploy if needed, with 90% emphasis on synergy rather than individual monsters) sounds great on paper, but what makes it fantastic is just how well it was pulled off with masterful balancing and no shortage of genuinely difficult fights to test you. Also metroidvania elements in the system where every mon has an overworld ability and most are related to traversal. I put it up as #4 in my list, it's definitely my favorite battle system for the genre. Their next game seems to be following a similar system, too. Sometime soon I'm gonna do another MS run, though.
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Dec 10, 2023 18:08
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FireWorksWell posted:I put it up as #4 in my list, it's definitely my favorite battle system for the genre. Their next game seems to be following a similar system, too. Same, I went over everything with a fine-toothed comb on my first playthrough because I was just having such a great time, so I gave the randomizer a short stress test despite not having the energy for another full playthrough and was very pleased with how good a job they did with it. Their next game is going to be an instant buy just on the strength of wanting to see what a studio that pulled this off is up to. My final megapowerful team were a frog named Croaku, a shabby looking ensign lizard, and an adorable blob of ice, but I probably had 3+ more per slot I'd regularly swap in and out for variety or the various other synergies they'd have. Epic High Five fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Dec 10, 2023 |
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Dec 10, 2023 18:13
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ChocNitty posted:drat nice post! wow! thank you!!
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Dec 10, 2023 18:14
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I like Monster Sanctuary a lot but the party-based fighting, and the fact you aren't guaranteed a capture, makes it feel less Pokemon to me.
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Dec 10, 2023 18:34
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HopperUK posted:I like Monster Sanctuary a lot but the party-based fighting, and the fact you aren't guaranteed a capture, makes it feel less Pokemon to me. I can see it, I mostly view it as some of the more interesting stuff about Pokemon PvP being implemented in a way that isn't quite so horrible and limiting to actually work with. As for the capture thing, yeah that's fair even with what feel like relatively good odds, but I think I've just got so much time under my belt in the old ones (I didn't play any of them between red/blue and Sword/Shield) that literally no alternative capture system can feel worse. Sure, it's not 100% but iirc the better you do the more likely you get an egg so there's some strategy, but mostly whatever you want spawns at a known location on the screen so you can just fight it directly. Way easier. Arceus is also on my list for reasons that have a lot of overlap. drat I loved that game for all its flaws, and I don't think I've ever done more desperate scrambling in a mainline Pokemon game than I did with the final fight, despite having what I considered to be a pretty powerful and comprehensive team.
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Dec 10, 2023 19:01
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It's hard to really talk about monster taming games without comparing to The Big One, but I do agree it's not very similar to Pokemon-type games. On that end I'm already loving Coromon like an hour in, the intro fight was a nice display of how complex the battle system can get.Epic High Five posted:Sure, it's not 100% but iirc the better you do the more likely you get an egg so there's some strategy, but mostly whatever you want spawns at a known location on the screen so you can just fight it directly. Way easier. Yeah, it's not guaranteed but if you can do 4 or 5s the rates for egg grabbing aren't too bad.
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Dec 10, 2023 19:12
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I didn’t play plenty of big ‘23 releases that I will probably enjoy. Final Fantasy, Armored Core, Super Mario RPG, Pikmin, Disgaea, among others. I’m surprised how often Octopath 2 is coming up on people’s lists. I really need to check that one out since I thought the first was only okay. And Pizza Tower needs to come to consoles. Like hell I’m going to play a fast paced platformer on my PC. Some games I did play that I’ll qualify as honorable mentions because they were pretty good but I’m secretly disappointed by them since they couldn’t crack the top 10: Mario Wonder, Alan Wake 2, Sea of Stars, World of Horror, Remnant 2, RE4, Diablo 4, Spiderman 2, Wild Hearts. I added a downside section to each number because I did it for one then figured it would only be fair to do for all.  10. Anno 1800: No idea why it took me so long to play an Anno game and so long for 1800 in particular. Spinning plates and juggling production chains at its finest. It starts you off with simple mechanics and expands upon them and expands upon them and expands upon them, to the point you’ve added dozens of new things to keep track of that all stem from the same things you were doing from day one. One thing Anno 1800 understands perfectly is that more than half the point of a city builder is building a beautiful looking city. I love watching my colonies expand. They’re beautiful and I don’t think any game has ever done it better. Making a large amount of housing essential rather than an abstraction like many games means it feels more like an actual village->town->city and the way wants/needs work means your citizen tiers will cluster in logical patterns too. The game has an insane amount of DLC that’s probably way too much for me to ever fully explore, which again makes me a bit sad I didn’t start sooner and consume them one at a time. Strangely enough, Anno 1800 helped me better contextualize the resource grab in the New World driven by the voracious need for its goods in the Old World. Downside: Not a huge fan of the way AI works, especially for pirates. It’s too safe if you shut them off, too gamey to make them your best friends. I figure pirates should be sporadic threats to your supply lines, not a constantly respawning fleet whose base is hidden behind super cannons.  9. Dredge: I like horror and I like fishing. In games, not life. Fish are fundamentally spooky in either. Dredge puts you behind the wheel of a rinky-dink boat and asks you to fish your way to the bottom of the mystery of why the heck everything is so weird around here. You have a few different fishing tools (rod, crane, trawl) and each island area you sail to gives you a few different quirks to work with. At night, you’d best find a safe haven and sleep or else face various horrors. Dredge does more interesting things with light than Alan Wake 2. Your boat starts off slow, unwieldy, and equipped with a tiny headlight. It’s upgradable, but the game is actually at its best and most atmospheric when you’re dealing with the limitations of your lovely little boat. Downside: It’s a bit shallow (heh.) I yearned for more complexity in fishing but what you see at the beginning is what you’re going to see all game. The spookiness drops off considerably when you get better lights and engines.  8. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: I wasn’t sure what to think coming into this. While I liked Breath of the Wild, I didn’t love it like many of you did. As I got playing, I was like: hmm, more of this, huh. Then I got to my first post-tutorial sky island and it clicked. I loved jumping from island to island and figuring out inventive ways to get between them. I never stopped loving that throughout. I want a game set entirely in the sky, moving from fragment to fragment and solving puzzles. The sky also had the advantage of letting me drop almost anywhere I wanted on the ground, which went a long way to keeping the re-used world fresh. The magic hand threaded the needle perfectly with being not too restrictive to stifle creativity but not too freeform to be overwhelming. It’s a true testament to this game that nearly every time I wondered ‘Will this work?’ with some tweaking it usually did. I loved finding the guy holding up the sign every time. He’s allowed to come to my game made entirely of sky islands. Downside: The combat in this game is rear end. I didn’t like it in BotW and at first it seems better here due to fusing, but this is a trick and it’s actually worse because not only do you now need to collect weapons that constantly break, you need to wade through the poor UI each time to fuse them. And enemies scale and get absurdly spongey by the end (the top tier moblins could beat ganondorf in a duel, easy.) For the first several hours, many things out in the world will kill you in 1-2 hits and I’m baffled that this doesn’t come up more often in discussions about the game. I avoided combat wherever possible.  7. Blasphemous 2: I can’t believe how many options I have nowadays for games with stunning pixel art. The devs kind of said all they had to say about Spanish Catholicism in the first game, so this is mostly a streamlined retread. Penitente is far more mobile and there’s multiple weapon options, from fast to slow. You can swing a goddamn censer on a chain. And I did. Post-release improvements for the first game, from Spanish VA to more forgiving pixels when jumping from a platform, are present from the start. It’s a fairly linear game, but given that Blasphemous is the closest modern series to pre-SotN Castlevania, that’s no problem at all. It could have lost the MV-style ‘return to one room early in the game to use a new ability to get an item’ bits, imo. The sound design is great, and I can easily conjure the meaty thwack my censer made when smacking enemies right now. Downside: RIP the unsettling pixel art cutscenes from the first game in favor of some dumb animated crap. Also, the penultimate boss is an absurd difficulty spike.  6. Alwa’s Awakening: This is a game from 2017 that no one played. I can’t remember buying it. I suppose you’d call it a metroidvania, but it’s more in line with Zelda2/Wonderboy/Simon’s Quest. As platformers keep getting faster and faster, it was neat to play a game that is slow and methodical. You don’t move very fast and your attack range is stubby. You never acquire a double jump or an air dash. You can never swim. There’s a single damage upgrade and a situational health upgrade to give you a second set of hearts. You have three core abilities to create a block, a rising bubble, and shoot a lightning bolt. Jumping has basically no momentum in Alwa’s. . . meaning as soon as you stop holding the stick you fall down. When you see a room, you have to plot out how you’re going to get through it using each of your abilities and limited movement. For example, in the screenshot above that I took from Steam, I know that once Zoe reaches the bottom hall, she won’t have the space or speed to jump the fireballs while breaking the stone blocks so the player will need to cover their rear end with green blocks. Everything feels calculated. It really works. I loved the ending. That’s saying something for a game with next to no narrative. I picked up the sequel, which is in the more common SNES style, and it’s fun and good but already less unique. It’s made me retroactively appreciate the different design principles at work between the NES and SNES eras. I don’t do much sequence breaking nowadays but Alwa’s Awakening is built for it. I was leery of trying the speedrun trophy because the timing is very tight. But then I mastered the three sequence break techniques (basically: a double jump, a vertical wall jump, and an infinite bubble jump) and it was a breeze skipping past whole sections of the game. Downside: Exploring off the beaten path is pointless for the first half of the game since you won’t have the abilities to progress to the secret bits if you’re not sequence breaking. But then all of a sudden this changes, without the game telling you, and suddenly it's required to backtrack and I found this shift jarring.  5. Baldur’s Gate 3: I’ve been playing games for more than thirty years now. While I’ll play almost any genre if the game is good, platformers and RPGs have always been my favorite. Since Super Mario Bros and Final Fantasy 1. Yet despite liking virtually every other sub-type of RPGs, CRPGs have never clicked for me. They’re slow. They require a lot of reading, both for plot and to decipher arcane tabletop rules. As a consequence of length and frustration I usually drop off at some point, never to return. Did BG3 change this? No. It’s still slow and way too long. It frequently wastes my time. It’s buggy, obtuse, has a bad UI, and oscillates wildly between brilliant reactivity and obvious bullshit that I often couldn’t tell was intentional railroading or a bug (lockpicking wakes up sleeping guards??) It’s the only beatable game on this list I haven’t beaten. Yet, it has such high production values, from the voice work to the facial expressions to the world to the writing to animal speaking to the. . . everything. I’ve never encountered a breathing world like this and I believe it completely. There’s so much uninspired crap we put up with because we like video games that it’s astounding what happens when a team with a budget puts immense care into almost every detail. My character has a few permanent maluses like one eye and his brain is broke from an evil book and I love that I was visually and mechanically punished for making questionable decisions. Heavy narrative (text/cutscene) games don’t do it for me. I’d rather read a book or watch a movie and a few years ago my enjoyment of games, which had been diminishing, rocketed back up once I realized I’m much better off skipping cutscenes in at least half the games I play. Despite the fact that his game often aggravates me enough to drop it for a while, I keep coming back because I want to know what happens to my people. I want to know what happens to the city. The fact that this is delivered by the age-old technique of giving me a list of conversation options followed by a reaction is quite something. By existing, it really does make me think less of huge swathes of other video games. Downside: CRPG. If this game played like Dragon Age or Mass Effect. . . or hell, if it played like Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy or Paper Mario or Demon’s Souls, it’d probably be one of my favorite games of all time instead of merely mid-list GOTY ‘23  4. OlliOlliWorld: Here’s a simple formula to make a platformer I will enjoy: - Tight controls - Levels that are neither too short (Mario Wonder) nor too long (Mega Man 11) - Escalating difficulty curve - Multiple paths - Challenges that invite repeat level playthroughs, leading to mastery OlliOlli does all this while being stylish as all hell. You’re on a skateboard. You don’t stop. Gotta go fast. Joy start to finish. The DLC is great too. I am pleased that my GOTY list contains both a very slow and very fast platformer. That said, this piece of poo poo game didn’t count three of the final capstone challenges I completed, meaning I was denied both in-game cosmetics and the platinum trophy. gently caress you, game. Devs posted about it on the steam forums months back with no intention to fix. Downside: Other than the bug, there were a few late game challenges where you needed to nail your momentum perfectly that might have been a bit too finicky in an otherwise tight game.  3. Against the Storm: Asks a simple question: Why not play the best part of a city builder over and over? You know, the part where you first get started and the skies the limit, fighting to stabilize your economy and survive. Then, move on to the next level. AtS pulls this off through a myriad of beautifully interacting systems, a changing set of positive/negative map modifiers, and RNG cards that alter what buildings/races/resources you can choose every game. It’s incredibly addictive. And satisfying. I learn something new every map, which lasts the perfect length before growing stale. It’s hard to effectively explain why this works, so if you have any interest in city builds just buy it. It’s the game on my list with the freshest ideas. This just hit 1.0 a few days ago, but I bought it in EA several weeks back when I learned 1.0 is only going to add a super hard end game mode. Downside: The metacurrency unlocks are too slow. They go up by difficulty level but not by enough. Percentage modifiers are fine, but I’m 35+ hours in and still unlocking fundamental game mechanics.  2. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: I love Mimimi’s games. At the end of the day, they’re just rule-based puzzles with a bunch of moving parts, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like a tactical genius every time I finish a complicated set piece. The premise here is you control a crew of undead pirates doing essentially the same thing the cowboys did in Desperados 3 and the ninjas did in Shadow Tactics: sneaking between vision cones, causing distractions, setting traps, silently killing, and hiding many, many bodies in the bushes. The big change in this one is that you can tackle the missions in any order and bring whichever crew members you want. Also, they all have super powers on par or exceeding the voodoo lady in desperados. These are the best stealth games ever made and only MGS5 or Hitman can make an argument. There’s a quick save/reload functionality (built into the narrative this time) that makes experimentation easy and being spotted no problem at all. Honestly if Hitman had this instead of the slow-rear end load and reload I’d probably like it a lot more than I already do. Alas, Mimimi closed and this is their last game. Downside: The story thinks it's far more charming than it actually is. In a way, one of the game’s greatest strengths (choosing your crew) is also a weakness since the levels can’t be designed to require specific skills and after a while start to feel a bit samey. It’s a little too easy.  1. Lies of P: Yeah, some Korean devs no one ever heard of made an excellent Souls game. Not only that, they did so starring Pinnochio and even innovated some fresh ideas I’ll now miss in From’s games. Every weapon is made up of a blade and hilt and you can mix and match. You switch out different versions of your mechanical arm to do various cool poo poo. The world is superbly designed, every element with thought and care. Stuff like the way P sharpens his weapons or dodges along the ground are details most games wouldn’t care about. Even the collectible records you pick up are well-made classical music. The bosses own. The story is comprehensible and I cared about both the city of Krat and P’s particular circumstances by the end. It’s just fun to play. I sped through NG+ immediately after I beat it and almost considered jumping right back in for a third run. There’s a wonderful post-credits teaser and I can’t wait for the sequel. Better than Elden Ring. GOTY. Downside: That last area is drab and a little long? Boss attack patterns can be a bit too RNG? Nitpicking. One of the amazing things about this game is how complete of a package it is. ultrachrist fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Dec 11, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 01:03
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10. Yakuza 0 Finally bit the bullet. It's a good game, and I can appreciate why so many people love it. The ratio of cut-scenes and dialog to gameplay, as well as the wild swings in difficulty (and lack of variety in fights) knock several points off this for me. I know the game isn't _super_ about that, but it's a big part of what I play games for. 9. World of Warcraft / Classic / Season of Discovery / Hardcore WoW is back. Dragonflight has brought me back to retail in a big way (more accessible in many ways, the gameplay new systems introduced are really fun), but the nostalgia hit from Classic, as well as the gameplay twists of Hardcore and Season of Discovery have made those feel like fresh experiences too. 8. Diablo 4 A really solid Diablo game, perfect for the sweet spot for someone who plays single to low-digit number of hours per week, and enjoys the campaign with some friends. I can't speak for the endgame for the hardcore ARPG-ers, but for my type of player, it was a lot of fun. 7. Overwatch 2 I've gotten more hours out of this game than probably anything else. For someone that enjoys a tight, competitive, arena-y PvP shooter experience, Overwatch is perfect. The direction the game is heading in has continued to improve and it's free! 6. Hi-Fi Rush 5. Dave the Diver I'll group these two as my biggest surprises. A diving RPS with lots of sim elements and a rhythm-y-based game were not on my bingo card for best games of the year, but here we are. 4. Super Mario Bros. Wonder Super Mario World re-imagined and infused with so much whimsy it hurts. Almost the perfect mix of controls, animations, music, and accessibility for a platformer. My main nit is that it is a very easy game. Even for someone who doesn't play a lot of platformers, you might be challenges by 2-3 of the levels in the entire game. 3. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Unquestionably a better game than Breath of the Wild, but I can't quite say it left the same impression or lasting impact on me. Both due to the feeling of it being BotW2, as well as not being someone who falls in love with crafting systems. I still enjoyed every minute I played, and the quality of experience easily brings it into the top 5. 2. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty I've never felt more like I was in a spy thriller than in this game. Outside of the core story, the almost complete overhaul of all the gameplay systems is incredible, not to mention all the additions to increase immersive-ness: gangs trying to track you down, being able to sit and eat anywhere, etc, etc. If the quality of quest design and set pieces in Phantom Liberty extended throughout all of Cyberpunk, this would be the GOTY and the GOAT. 1. Baldur's Gate 3 What else is there to be said? You can do anything and be anyone in an incredibly immersive world that is gigantic. The most fun version of digital D&D that I've experienced. I've played for 100+ hours and still discover new things constantly. I highly expect to spend many, many more hours once (please!) crossplay happens. jusion fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 12, 2023 |
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Dec 11, 2023 02:39
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I played a lot of Games in 2023, but Seven stand out to me more than others, so those Seven are going to be what comprises the list that I have created for the Games Game of the Year 2023 Thread. Rather than a Paint Drawing for each game, this year I’ve decided to create this… thing - maybe you’ll recognise the games referenced before reading the list. Maybe you won’t! This, like many things, is a mystery to us all.  And so, with links to the Steam page for each game, ranked from least best to most best… 7. Timberborn Timberborn is great and entirely unfinished (which is fine, it’s in Early Access) but I love it so very much all the same. I think Beavers are brilliant so a Colony Builder where the Colonists are Beavers is always going to be a winner in my book. What makes Timberborn great though, is the level of creativity and complexity that the game encourages you to explore whilst providing unique situations due to the water and irrigation mechanics. Being Early Access, it’s on the receiving end of updates fairly regularly and as such, there’s usually something new to figure out - all in all, a brilliant game and I’m looking forward to spending many more hours with it. 6. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty I have a fondness for Cyberpunk 2077 and have greatly loved the game since December 10th 2020, when it was released and everyone in the world including your family declared it to be a broken piece of poo poo mess that didn’t deliver on any of its promises, which would have made for a really boring Christmas Dinner conversation in your household, I assume. I originally played it on PC, running a GTX 1660s (workhorse of a GPU, by the way) and it looked fantastic. I was fortunate or, more likely, not attentive enough to notice any of the bugs and general terrible nonsense that everyone claimed the game had and thoroughly enjoyed every hour I spent in Night City. In fact, I returned to the game frequently just to drive around - Night City feels like a very real place and I don’t think any game has ever really captured that feel of being in a place quite so well as Cyberpunk 2077 did and still does to this day. Eventually I decided I would one day revisit the game, once it had a DLC and I had a machine capable of RTX. Three years later, both of those things came true and I jumped back into Night City via Phantom Liberty. Phantom Liberty isn’t perfect but it comes as close to realising what makes Cyberpunk 2077 such a great game as anything else could. The story of Phantom Liberty is worth playing, with interesting twists and turns that tie into the world the game sets out to create and the Characters within that world. There isn’t really much to say without ruining the story, so instead I’ll leave it there. My favourite thing about it though? That sense of place. Just like the rest of Night City, Dogtown has an atmosphere to it and it is better than ever. I’ll leave you with some Spoiler Free screenshots that I took of a few locations in the DLC that made me stop and just enjoy the moment.    5. Rogue Legacy 2 I love a Roguelike and I didn’t think any game would come close to Slay the Spire in the genre, but Rogue Legacy 2 managed it (and is a very different game). I’m not typically enamoured by the combination of Roguelike and Metroidvania - I prefer one or the other, rarely both. Spelunky wasn’t something I ever really got massively into, for example, but I can sit and play Hollow Knight forever. Rogue Legacy 2 manages to combine both and then roll with it thereafter. It plays brilliantly - every move is fluid and well animated and every mistake or misstep is entirely on you. You’ll shout “bullshit” and die a lot, but eventually you’ll make it. Over and over and over again. I’ll be playing and recommending Rogue Legacy 2 for years to come. 4. Against the Storm Against the Storm is marketed as a Roguelike City Builder and it works extremely well at being that. The game operates on “Cycles” and at the beginning of each cycle, you set off on an expedition to tame the frontier, gather resources and survive as best you can. Throughout a cycle you’ll be building several outposts and then at the end of each cycle, all of that is washed away by the titular storm. When that happens though, you can buy upgrades and all the other staples of the Roguelike genre to make your next expedition that little bit more manageable. This is all combined with a fantastic difficulty curve that you can change on a settlement by settlement basis - I’m particularly fond of the way the game introduces additional mechanics based on the selected difficulty. They’re small, but significant, changes and as you progress up the “Prestige” ladder that comprises the games’ difficulty system, you start to really need to think of how your settlement is managed, organised and good at. You might have a settlement comprised of Beavers, Harpies and Foxes. Beavers excel at woodworking, Harpies are great at working with cloth and fire and Foxes love anything to do with the Rain and Exploration. The next settlement, the Harpies and Foxes are replaced with Lizards (excellent cooks) and Humans (superb brewers). There aren’t a huge amount of permutations the game can take, but it uses what it has to incredible effect and each new settlement has its own challenges and uniqueness that no two settlements ever really feel the same. There’s a real sense of threat management, as well - this is particularly impressive given the main thing you’re dealing with is an unrelenting storm that gets worse year by year and a forest that really does not want you to be there. All of this under the watchful gaze of the Queen, who grows more and more impatient with you the longer you take to get things under control. Against the Storm finally received a full release this month, after a long and fruitful early access period, so I’m genuinely excited to see what comes next for the game. 3. DAVE THE DIVER I had no idea what this game was and knew nothing about it when I decided on a whim to buy it. It showed up on the Homepage of Steam one day and I thought it looked really unique and - frankly - a bit bizarre. But it was under £20 and I didn’t really have anything else competing for my attention so I figured I’d give it a go for the refund window and see if it stuck. I’m going to quote the description of the game given by the Developers on the Steam page, just so you can get an idea of what my initial exposure to this game was: quote:DAVE THE DIVER is a casual, singleplayer adventure RPG featuring deep-sea exploration and fishing during the day and sushi restaurant management at night. Join Dave and his quirky friends as they seek to uncover the secrets of the mysterious Blue Hole. Then go and watch the Trailer. Everything about what the description and trailer are telling you is completely true and DAVE THE DIVER is one of the most wonderful games I’ve ever played. The gameplay loop is deceptively simple but exists in a perfect balance so you’re never doing something for so long as it begins to overstay its welcome. You dive to catch fish to turn into sushi to make money so you can dive to catch fish. Then things become complicated by a fun and interesting plot. Also the guy who makes weapons for you has an anime body pillow. Playing the game is a real treat, and it’s all accompanied by a great Soundtrack and some surprisingly good writing. It’s one of those games that’s just really well designed - as a game - and is a joy to play from the minute you first launch it as a result. If there’s one game you didn’t play this year and you should, I honestly believe DAVE THE DIVER is that game. 2. TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children The Something Awful Forums Videogames thread for this game states in the thread title that the game is “K-Pop Superhero XCOM Vs Spoons” and… yeah, it basically is that. Except. There’s something a lot more to TROUBLESHOOTER: Abandoned Children that I think draws you into its world, gameplay, systems (upon systems upon systems) and just works brilliantly. It’s a slow game that really, really wants you to get invested in the story that it's trying to tell. There are a few things working against this - the localisation is constantly a work in progress and the story is a bit insane. There’s an enormous cast of characters and plots going on. Things seemingly nonsensical become extremely important and characters are introduced early in the game and then never mentioned or seen again for tens of hours, when suddenly they become relevant and important. It’s a lot to track and that’s before the systems that all work together to form one of the most rich, complex and satisfying Turn Based Tactical Combat systems I’ve ever played. It’s slow though - you spend a long time with a single character and a few supporting cannon fodder type fellows before you start to round out the team of KPOP Superheroes you were promised. But honestly, the slow build up and simplicity of the early game is all there for a reason - it actually works and teaches you everything you need to know so that when you finally do have a bunch of super powerful Crime punching badasses, you’re able to build those characters to fill unique roles, deal with the challenges the game puts in front of you and overcome some - frankly - insane numbers of enemies. The art direction, narrative and general vibe of the game is going to be enough to put a lot of people off, but I promise you - underneath it all is one excellent combat system that - if you like that sort of thing - is completely worth it. And I think the story is pretty good. But I’m weird. 1. Baldurs Gate 3 I love Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I adored Divinity: Original Sin 2. I thought Encased was unique and interesting. I thought Pillars of Eternity was superb, but RTWP can get in the sea. Insert the name of a CRPG here and I’ll probably have an opinion on it. I love CRPG’s - warts and all - and have done for a long time. Through sheer force of will I didn’t partake in the Early Access for Baldurs Gate 3. Through great personal cost I didn’t follow any news about the game and did my absolute best to wait patiently for the release date, with every intention of going in as blind as possible. I didn’t need or want the hype or build up - I knew I’d buy it as soon as it was fully released and play it, no matter what. I suppose that kind of conviction can only come from being aware that Larian was making it and it was a new Baldur's Gate game. The game was released on August 3rd 2023 and by the end of the same month I’d spent 218 Hours playing it through twice. There were 744 Hours in August and I spent almost 30% of those hours playing Baldurs Gate 3. I’m not particularly proud of that fact - I’m an adult, with responsibilities, a job, a (very understanding) partner and a cat. But there I was, completely and utterly lost in this game. I actually had to make a promise to myself that I wouldn’t play it again until 2024. Let it get the promised patches, the extra polish - all the stuff that people were saying it desperately needed. So I haven’t played it since, but it sits there, taunting me, asking me to come up with a new character idea, asking me to play The Dark Urge to see what that’s about. I will. Next year. I’m not going to sit here and act like Baldurs Gate 3 is flawless because I know it isn’t, but it doesn’t really have to be. To me, it delivered everything I wanted out of it and made a genre of game I love suddenly known about to the masses. There’s all the usual words about how it set new standards - I agree, it did - and there’s the funny stuff from Developers on Twitter complaining that it isn’t fair to judge their work against Baldurs Gate 3 because it was a game made by a team with time, commitment and passion. There’s all of that, sure. To me though, Baldurs Gate 3 is simply my favourite game, and I’m just glad to have finally been able to play it. Rimworld is definitely a close second though. Thankyou for reading my words about videogames in 2023. Quick list: 7. Timberborn 6. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 5. Rogue Legacy 2 4. Against the Storm 3. Dave the Diver 2. Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children 1. Baldurs Gate 3
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Dec 11, 2023 04:09
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jusion posted:10. World of Warcraft / Classic / Season of Discovery / Hardcore If you want these votes counted you need to write a sentence or two about the top five entries!
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Dec 11, 2023 04:23
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Ok, after earlier Cloudbuilt discussion I decided to fire up OG Cloudbuilt to see if I could still recommend it when Super Cloudbuilt exists, and not only can I, this has somehow turned into replaying the entire game, including all four Defiance levels and the Remix levels. Compared to SCB, it has worse music and graphics, and more glitches, but a better UI, more optional levels, and you can, you know, actually buy it. It also -- and I didn't initially realize this -- has a "Default Mode" (distinct from "Challenge Mode") that slows down the game slightly and dials back the more vicious enemy placements, making the game a bit more accessible for newbies; it doesn't have SCB's consumables, but I like this approach more, I think. I've now finished all five of the main branches, and three of the four Defiance levels (leaving Expectations, the only one I didn't finish in Super), along with a bunch of the Remixes. At this rate I'm going to end up finishing all of them and then getting into the huge pile of community levels over the holidays. This game definitely deserves the #1 spot I gave it. SlothBear posted:I like this system. I made up one that is sort of similar that rates games on Spectacle, Craftsmanship, Artistry, Gameplay, and Value but I think I might replace Value with Time as I agree that's something I put a higher priority on these days, and just address cost separately. I'd rather play a 2 hour indie game with a satisfying ending than deal with all the padded stretching of content that weak games seem to think is necessary to cram into everything and making Time a rated part of the game reflects that. Nice. I just rank mine based entirely on vibes, but I also usually only manage, like, 30 games a year tops. Less this year! ultrachrist posted:2. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: I love Mimimi’s games. At the end of the day, they’re just rule-based puzzles with a bunch of moving parts, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling like a tactical genius every time I finish a complicated set piece. The premise here is you control a crew of undead pirates doing essentially the same thing the cowboys did in Desperados 3 and the ninjas did in Shadow Tactics: sneaking between vision cones, causing distractions, setting traps, silently killing, and hiding many, many bodies in the bushes. The big change in this one is that you can tackle the missions in any order and bring whichever crew members you want. Also, they all have super powers on par or exceeding the voodoo lady in desperados. These are the best stealth games ever made and only MGS5 or Hitman can make an argument. There’s a quick save/reload functionality (built into the narrative this time) that makes experimentation easy and being spotted no problem at all. Honestly if Hitman had this instead of the slow-rear end load and reload I’d probably like it a lot more than I already do. I was so sad to hear that Mimimi was shutting down; Blades of the Shogun single-handedly redeemed the genre for me and was on my top list for 2022 (up against some very strong competition). I picked up Desperados 3 recently and I'm expecting that to make it onto my 2024 list.
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Dec 11, 2023 04:50
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ultrachrist posted:Downside: The combat in this game is rear end. I didn’t like it in BotW and at first it seems better here due to fusing, but this is a trick and it’s actually worse because not only do you now need to collect weapons that constantly break, you need to wade through the poor UI each time to fuse them. And enemies scale and get absurdly spongey by the end (the top tier moblins could beat ganondorf in a duel, easy.) For the first several hours, many things out in the world will kill you in 1-2 hits and I’m baffled that this doesn’t come up more often in discussions about the game. I avoided combat wherever possible. Not to be too up on the game, but I suspect that's more a goal than an accident. Or at least, the game is tuned to encourage you to learn ways to deal with enemies other than a direct brawl early, while still giving you incentive to kill enemies for their loot (both to upgrade your gear and to sell, since finances are tight early game). If fights were easy from the beginning, then seeing a Moblin would make you just try to stab it. Since it's terrifying, you're more likely to start a fire, or plant explosives, or run him over with a truck, because direct combat means dying and going back to your last save (a minute or two because the game auto-saves all the time, with staggered saves to avoid trapping you in a bad situation). I do agree the silver enemies have a bit too much health, though. By then you have the tactics to make a win simple, but very few weapons do enough damage to prevent it from being a slog. At least it makes it easy to appreciate the environmental kills.
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Dec 11, 2023 06:22
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Not a regular games poster outside of a few threads. Here's my ranking: 5. Baldur's Gate 3 Heretical but I'm not too far through it yet. I lived through the 90's CRPGs but this made me feel like I didn't, forgetting to save more than once and hour and then pathfinding kills my whole party and I have to go back an hour. It's great and will definitely be playing it through 2024 4. Genshin Impact Started as a Breath of the Wild clone with a lot of numbers involved in the progression system. Remains a surprisingly chill game to just put on, go do a bit of exploring, get new content without having to learn a new game system. I finally know what the WoW heads were talking about, especially the part where I should be quitting the game. 3. Magic: the Gathering Arena The (FTP adaptation of the) king of card games. No day feels better than one in which you are drafting well and can string together multiple 5+ win drafts and keep the drafts going. Sometimes a slog when you run out of gold/gems and have to do limited grinds over a week to get back there. Can be played while petting a cat, a giant plus. 2. Disco Elysium Holy gently caress no one was kidding when they said it was great. I bounced off of it soon after release, but the definitive edition with full voice acting helps a whole lot. Also just be the jerk that you want to be, I somehow was both a socialist hero and a quasi-fascist by the game's reckoning and now I have to play it again but I don't even know if I'd play it differently. 1. Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Just a beautiful, great game. Made me cry multiple times through playing it. My partner who doesn't want to learn all the fancy combat tricks can still dominate, me who apparently forgets Rewind exists 3/4 of the time, and just seeing so many different ways to approach any given problem and none are necessarily wrong but once you see another you'll slap your head and say why didn't I think of it?
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Dec 11, 2023 11:16
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ultrachrist posted:
i can't believe you didn't mention the god-tier music!!! alwa's awakening is such a great buried gem
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Dec 11, 2023 13:06
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Maxwells Demon posted:I lived through the 90's CRPGs but this made me feel like I didn't, forgetting to save more than once and hour and then pathfinding kills my whole party and I have to go back an hour. Every time I do this I just sit there for a moment thinking,"But you've been playing these games for so long, how do you forget to do this!?!" 
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Dec 11, 2023 14:05
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If you're worried about forgetting to save in BG3, just play on Honor Mode. Guaranteed autosave after every little thing you do!!
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Dec 11, 2023 14:26
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Jerusalem posted:Every time I do this I just sit there for a moment thinking,"But you've been playing these games for so long, how do you forget to do this!?!" Does BG3 not have autosave?  I played the game. I feel like I should know this, but I find myself unable to remember.
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Dec 11, 2023 14:34
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Silver Falcon posted:Does BG3 not have autosave? It does but saves are very few and far between with it. I think it's not timer based but event based, so you get a save before a major boss fight but you won't before the random encounter that's two levels too high for you after your party pathed into acid.
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Dec 11, 2023 14:38
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Whenever BG3 decides to autosave that usually means you're about to get owned.
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Dec 11, 2023 14:43
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An Actual Princess posted:i can't believe you didn't mention the god-tier music!!! alwa's awakening is such a great buried gem Sequel is cool too.
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Dec 11, 2023 16:25
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exquisite tea posted:Whenever BG3 decides to autosave that usually means you're about to get owned. That little pause for autosave is the equivalent of your dungeon master clearing their throat, shuffling papers and chuckling It means very bad things
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Dec 11, 2023 16:52
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exquisite tea posted:Whenever BG3 decides to autosave that usually means you're about to get owned. lol
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Dec 11, 2023 17:30
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